


hurt together, heal together

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the temporary safety of Whitestone, Jarett and Gilmore talk of many things. Of dragons and spells and shattered cities, of loss, and of unexpected things that can come of stealthiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hurt together, heal together

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day three of [Critical Role Rarepair Week](http://critrolerarepair.tumblr.com/about).
> 
> Characters are, as ever, not mine.
> 
> * * *

Winter in Whitestone is crisper than Emon, the air having a certain bite to it that Jarett's not accustomed to. Still, he's gotten used to worse conditions: fighting with a dagger half-sunk in his thigh; pulling a forced march on minimal rations; listening to Scanlan play the shalm. 

And so it's not such a hardship to stand upon the tower of Whitestone Castle, looking out over the sleeping city, missing Emon but somewhat content in the knowledge that his new charges—the Empress Salda and her children—are safe within the castle walls. 

"Good evening," a quiet voice says from the archway back into the tower, and Jarett turns to see the wizard who's been slowly returning to life over the past while. Shade? Shane? No, he'd know if this man and his close compatriot shared a name. 

"Good evening—" 

"Shaun Gilmore," the other man fills in, coming forward into the moonlight. "It's Jarett, isn't it?" 

"Yes." At least he knows why Gilmore knows _his_ name; one of the drills they'd all gone through before being chosen for Vox Machina's guard was attempting to dodge a series of magical missiles that the wizard had flung at them. Simple stuff, but he'd had the feeling at the time that there was more to it than that, that Gilmore was watching them to see who would be most loyal to the group. 

Also to see who was quickest to frustration, since the missiles were unerringly true in their aim and thus irritatingly undodgeable. 

Gilmore's name might have escaped him momentarily, but his affection for Vox Machina—Vax in particular—is something that anyone who works for Vox Machina knows well. Or the guards, at least. Any time he's tried to raise it with Laina, she's scolded him for being nosy. Then scolded him again for mooching food, and chased him out of her kitchen with her wooden spoon. 

Jarett loves Laina, and doddering old Erwen, and their patient loyalty to their frankly mad and maddening employers. 

"Are you watching for anything in particular?" Gilmore leans against the parapet, allowing Jarett to see that he's recovering nicely. When Jarett had first seen him after they'd fled Emon he'd looked, to put it bluntly, like shit. Miracle of healing or no, he was not doing at all well. Still, he'd usually had a smile on his lips and a glimmer in his eye, especially once Cassandra de Rolo got in his ear and started talking about locations of magical accoutrements. 

Now he looks considerably less like shit. Now he looks a lot more like the dashing merchant-wizard that he is, tricked out once more in purple and gold, thanks to some stored-away de Rolo finery and a bucket of dye. Jarett knows about the dye because when he'd smelt it, boiling away in the courtyard, he'd thought they were dealing with another dragon attack of acidic spittle. 

Gilmore doesn't smell like acidic dragon spittle, though. He's rousted out a lovely musky cologne from somewhere. Jarett resists the urge to sniff him. 

"Just watching. Mostly thinking." 

"About?" Gilmore gives him a look of genuine interest. 

"How swiftly cities can fall when the slightest thing goes wrong." 

Gilmore chuckles, baritone and bubbling. "My dear boy, I wouldn't call four dragons attacking the city 'the slightest thing'." 

"If we'd had any clue as to what was going to happen, we could have rallied, we could have..." Jarett trails off. 

"We could have died draining our energy instead of using it to flee," Gilmore says, sounding just that little bit too pretentious. 

"I'm not the one who nearly died dueling a dragon." 

Gilmore slaps a palm to his forehead and the gesture draws Jarett's attention to his skin, makes him wonder if there's someone from Marquet in his family tree to give him that coloring. It's not the same rich nut-brown as his own skin, but it's not the paler shade of most people hailing from Tal'Dorei. "Will I never live that down?" 

"Not as long as our mutual friends have anything to say about it." 

The change in Gilmore's temperament is extraordinary, as if a chill breeze has hardened the wizard's heart and stiffened his spine. "Ah. Yes." He looks out over Whitestone, as if there were any way of discerning the direction that Vox Machina might currently be in just by looking. Strange, really; of all the people in the castle, refugees or residents alike, surely Shaun Gilmore has the most power to locate his friends, Jarett's employers. "I'm sure they've spread the tale around." 

Something in his face makes Jarett touch Gilmore's hand briefly. "Only because they know they're not the only heroes in town." 

Gilmore scoffs. "I'm not a hero, I'm an idiot." 

"I hear that if you hadn't been an idiot, our Empress would be dead alongside her husband, and gods only know what would have happened to their children. Eaten, probably." 

"I don't think these dragons are as interested in eating people as they are in simple destruction. Except it's not simple, and it's not mindless. There's some purpose, some intent behind it, and I don't know what, and it's frustrating." Gilmore blows out a breath that fogs briefly before his face; Jarett realizes that yes, it really is turning that cold. 

"I hear Lady Allura and Lady Kima have dealt with the red one before," he says, rubbing his hands together, feeling them tingle. He should have worn gloves. 

"Yes... they and Drake Thunderbrand," Gilmore says absently, grasping Jarett's hands between his own slightly larger palms and murmuring something Jarett doesn't catch. All of a sudden not only his hands but his whole body shudders with a sudden ripple of magical warmth that becomes almost _too_ warm before settling to a comfortable level. He can still feel the cold, but it no longer seems like it will be at the expense of any of his extremities. 

"Thank you," he says. 

"Don't mention it." Gilmore gives him a wry smile. "My adventuring days may be behind me, but I haven't forgotten what the cold can do." He squeezes Jarett's hands once more and then lets them go. 

"You were an adventurer?"

"Not all wizards learn their skills sitting up in towers reading books, my dear boy. Besides, how else could I make connections to sellers of various exotic goods? Trade routes are all well and good, but you've got to have someone waiting on the other end." 

"I suppose I thought you'd use magical travel," Jarett admits. 

"Oh, it can come in handy, but one never knows when one might have that once-off error in teleportation and find oneself inside a dragon." 

"It all comes back to dragons, doesn't it?" Jarett hears the bitterness in his own voice. "They've taken Emon from us, gods know which other cities, and they've taken—" 

"Vox Machina. I know." Gilmore's voice is gentle, but Jarett can hear the pain in it. "But you know they can look after themselves." 

Jarett sighs. "No. I know Grog thinks he can solve everything by hitting it, and Keyleth's so bloody _chirpy_ sometimes I could _scream_ , and Percy's going to blow up the world one day, but Gilmore, I do _not_ know that they can look after themselves." He sees Gilmore open his mouth and holds up a hand to forestall him. "I'm not saying I should be out there protecting them. My job is to protect their home, and right now that's this castle. For all I know, Greyskull Keep is rubble." His throat tightens unexpectedly at the thought. He doesn't have much in the way of personal possessions, but all that he did have is still in his room in the guards' quarters. If they still exist. 

"I don't know what my job is any more," Gilmore says thoughtfully, looking down into the darkness once more. "I suppose a merchant without his shop isn't much of anything." 

"Bullshit," Jarett says bluntly. "Lady Allura brought all those spell scrolls in just this morning, and you know you're the best arcanist other than her to sort and classify them. I know that assistant of yours, what's-her-face, with that glare—" 

"—Sherri—" 

"—is doing the best that she can, but come on, you're a long way from just a merchant. You're a spellcaster. Whitestone needs those. Why did you even come up here in the first place? I'll wager it wasn't to take in the lovely night air. Which was, by the way, cold as a sorceress's tit before you cast that spell, so don't go telling me you're not much of anything." 

Gilmore looks simultaneously chastened and amused. "Well, yes, I did come up to assess the tower and see what wards are in place and what might be added. I wasn't expecting anyone else to be up here, so I had planned to test out my casting abilities now that Lady Kima's given me leave to get out bed for more than five minutes at a time. As for the cold, I can't comment on sorceresses' tits, but I can assure you my own chest is quite warm." 

Jarett tries to pretend that he doesn't immediately look at Gilmore's chest, doesn't notice the way the velvet doublet has just enough of a gap above the topmost button to show off an enticing glimpse of crisp black curls, but he knows Gilmore sees him looking. 

"Gilmore, who do you miss the most?" he blurts out. 

Gilmore's face goes stony. "You know that's a terribly unfair question, my dear boy." 

"Oh, stop calling me that. You _can_ talk to me, you know. I may not know them as well as you do, but I know them better than anyone else in this place does." 

Gilmore's face softens again. "I suppose you do, at that." He looks clear across the city this time, not down at it, into the place where the lights all disappear, replaced by darkness that could be trees or plains or nothing at all. "I miss them all to varying degrees, but it's Vax'ildan, obviously." 

Jarett wishes he hadn't asked. He's never heard that very specific quality of pain in a man's voice before. 

"What about you? Is there a member of our favorite motley party you particularly miss?" 

"I'd have to think it over." 

Gilmore treats him to another of those delightful chuckles. "Does that mean you have a special interest in more than one of them?" 

"Vex'ahlia," Jarett answers, perhaps a little too quickly. "If only because she seems to like me, gods only know why, I'm just a guard." 

"If I recall correctly, you're far from 'just' a guard. You have significant personal experience that makes you particularly suited for the role of guarding the keep of Emon's most favored heroes. Not only as a guard, but as the captain of the guard. And you're the only person I've ever met who could even attempt to duck a magic missile." 

"It's so unfair that those never miss," Jarett grumps. 

"Everyone's entitled to a trick that never fails." Gilmore smiles. "So, Vex'ahlia..." 

"Perhaps." Jarett meets his eyes. "Although both of the twins are each admirable in their own unique ways... as well as the ways in which they're similar." 

"That _hair_." Gilmore sounds exactly like Jarett's younger sister when she was a gushing adolescent. 

"They both have stunning eyes." 

"Vax's complete inability to get to the point within less than twenty minutes." 

"That endearing habit they both have of sneaking up behind you and asking what you're doing from three inches away," Jarett says with a self-deprecating laugh. 

"I can't imagine anyone sneaking up on you." 

"Really? _You_ almost did. I'm just glad you spoke before you got too close; I'm faster with my sword than my crossbow." 

Gilmore grins widely. "Fast with your sword, you say?" 

"Not like that!" Jarett protests, but Gilmore's already laughing, and so he has no choice but to join in. it feels good to laugh, even considering everything that's happened, even considering that he feels wrong about engaging in ribald joking when people have lost homes, family, lives. 

"I wonder just how closely I could sneak up on you," Gilmore says after a moment. 

"In that outfit? Better than anyone in armor, not as well as a trained rogue." Jarett's actually assessing Gilmore's outfit for what might be considered weak points in terms of stealthiness (the gold trim, for one), before he realizes that's not quite what Gilmore meant. 

"My dear— _Jarett_. I was—" 

"Yes, all right, I'm not _totally_ unfamiliar with innuendo." Jarett blesses his brown skin for hiding the blush that rises to his cheeks. "I was thinking like a guard." 

"Mmmm. Do you think perhaps for a moment you might think less like a guard and more like someone inclined to take pity on a lonely man?" 

There isn't much space between them to speak of, but Jarett closes it anyway. 

Gilmore's lips are soft and warm and he is clearly quite practiced at kissing. Jarett backs him up against the parapet and works a thigh in between his, quietly cursing the scabbard that tries to get in the way. He shouldn't be able to feel Gilmore's hands roaming over his back through his leather armor, but somehow he can. Whether it's wizard magic or just wishful thinking, he's not sure. 

"Just to be clear, Gilmore," he says against Gilmore's mouth, breaking the kiss for a moment, "this has nothing to do with pity." 

"No? Very well." Something in Gilmore's expression clears, something that Jarett hadn't even noticed was clouding it. "In that case, from here on out, perhaps you should call me Shaun."


End file.
